Maxwell's Leadership Myth #1: The Management Myth

John C. Maxwell, pp. 14 of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Follow Them and People Will Follow You,Nelson Books, 1998, says:

A widespread misunderstanding is that leading and managing are one and the same. The main difference between the two is that leadership is about influencing people to follow, while management focuses on maintaining systems and processes.

Remember Michael Gerber, The E-Myth revisited (Harper, 1995)? He says every business has three roles: entrepreneur (leader), Manager (Manager), Technician. The entrepreneur has the vision, the manager implements and maintains the vision, and the technician gets the work done.

If you're going to be an entrepreneur, you shouldn't be trying to manage the enterprise. You need to be true to the vision. Lead somebody into managing it for you. For them, really.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Is this helpful? Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.